third time; I dread to read it, for I dare not give it a
fourth chance - unless it be very bad indeed. Now I write
you from my mosquito curtain, to the song of saws and planes
and hammers, and wood clumping on the floor above; in a day
of heavenly brightness; a bird twittering near by; my eye,
through the open door, commanding green meads, two or three
forest trees casting their boughs against the sky, a forest-
clad mountain-side beyond, and close in by the door-jamb a
nick of the blue Pacific. It is March in England, bleak
March, and I lie here with the great sliding doors wide open
in an undershirt and p'jama trousers, and melt in the closure
of mosquito bars, and burn to be out in the breeze. A few
torn clouds - not white, the sun has tinged them a warm pink
- swim in heaven. In which blessed and fair day, I have to
make faces and speak bitter words to a man - who has deceived
me, it is true - but who is poor, and older than I, and a
kind of a gentleman too. On the whole, I prefer the massacre
of weeds.


SUNDAY.


When I had done talking to you yesterday, I played on my pipe
till the conch sounded, then went over to the old house for
dinner, and had scarce risen from table ere I was submerged
with visitors. The first of these despatched, I spent the
rest of the evening going over the Samoan translation of my
BOTTLE IMP with Claxton the missionary; then to bed, but
being upset, I suppose, by these interruptions, and having